Windy Meadows Farm

05/01/2025

Baby lady training Day #1!

Looking at the nubians, we are fairly hopeful that Ticket was able to use some go-go- gadget legs in order to.... get the deed done. I could do a pregnancy test on them, but I enjoy the suspense.

Anyway, fingers crossed, both Honey and Ginger will have their first kids in April. My hopeful plan is to let the girls keep their kids with them for at least a week or two so the babies get a strong start and the milk is all in. At that point, since nubians are usually excellent milk producers and the kids will be getting to the age where they start nibbling around on other food sources, I plan to milk a small amount from each lady once a day to have on hand to make cheeses, butter, soaps, etc. The babies will still be well fed and our family gets some more good ol' farm goodies. Might even have enough on hand in case we have another needy baby on the farm.

Over the next couple months, I need to train the ladies to be comfortable on the stands and to know that me sitting by them, scratching their bellies, setting a bucket beneath them, cleaning them, etc. are all hunky dory because they get to eat some yummy sweet food that no one else gets to eat. Today was the first step in that. Now.... crap... now I have to buy a stool to sit on... and a fancy bucket.... and cleaning stuff.... crap!

05/01/2025

Lessons from the farm: Part 19
Fight, flight, and Cud.

Even city folk have heard of the fight or flight response that pretty much every living thing has. It is a middle school science type lesson. When in a moment of fright, a moment of panic, adrenaline starts flying and the body automatically falls back to it's most basic and familiar reaction. In general, prey animals run (flight) and predators fight. Rabbits run, but dogs bite. Horses may kick, but it is typically only to buy time for them to run because they certainly can fly.

Then, there is this weird branch on prey animals, fancifully called ruminants, that has this weird buffering level called "chewing cud". In the middle of the day, they will all just go lay out in the sun and chew their cud. They go into some half asleep, half meditative state. It is weird to watch and imagine what is... or is not... going through their minds during these sometimes hours of lazy zombie behavior. The entire flock/herd just goes into standby mode. At least horses typically rotate a horse to stand lookout while everyone else goes offline. Cows don't! Goats don't! They just all shut down at the same time. What kind of prey animal just stops? An efficient predator, or heavens if it was a pack, could clear through half of them before the other half even woke up.

Ok, I admit, that last bit definitely doesn't seem like a behavior we should mimic. My unique brain, however, begs you to consider it. As a person with a heavy dose of anxiety traits, I typically respond very heavily with either a fight or flight response more than I should. Once I produced an offspring with all my skills plus some, I suddenly had to address it. As a mother, I would give my life to keep him from the demand for flight eating away at him. Always growing. Always getting stronger. Always..winning. It needs to end with me.

I told him that when we were anxious, we needed to breathe and face it. We needed to, slowly, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Just a bite of uncomfortable at a time. Once we were comfortable there, we could push a little deeper into uncomfortable. If we took it, bite by bite, eventually more would be comfortable than not. I promised him that I was right there with him.

I had noticed that even on solo hikes in the mountains that I love, I was still in a rush. I was still thinking about what I needed to get back to, what I should be doing instead of wasting my time hiking, what I needed to "fly" to do. Don't get me started on riding! That was a selfish moment that was a waste of time I could prepare a nutritious dinner, could remove the five pounds of dog hair from our house at any given moment, or excercise to become a better physical specimen for my husband. I needed to stop. I made myself find a beautiful spot, and I forced myself to stop. I made myself sit in the uncomfortable long enough that my brain could finish processing. I chewed all that cud that had built up no matter how long or painful until I was calm. Sometimes it takes a long while, but I make myself stay until the panicky feeling that I need to be somewhere else or do something else goes away.

We need to learn to take the data that we have collected and we need to really chew on it and look at every angle. We need to chew on it logically. In a lot of cases, we need to dial back on the emotions and hormones. We need to w**d out the extra, unnecessary, unworthy drama that we fill our lives with so that we can see what really matters.

So when we are full of so many emotions, but our bodily hormones are off kilter because of pregnancy, stress, age, or drama, we need to pause and chew our cud.

When we are overwhelmed with so many adult responsibilities all at once, we need to stop and marinate with it. We need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable and give our body time to process. We need to chew our cud.

To the outside world, we may be lazy or greedy or selfish even, but there is importance in processing.. the importance of chewing our cud.

04/01/2025

03/01/2025

Drive by mom and this year's twins this morning.

02/01/2025

As my sons are nearly both in high school, the conversations about college, trade school, following your passion, etc. are becoming more common.

The sucky part is explaining how 90% of us usually end up in jobs that are alright. We don't hate them, they pay the bills, and that is about it. I tell them that "following one's passion" can be destructive. They, as men, will most likely hold the blessing and burden of being the main supporters of their families. That is a very weighted responsibility. That means that it is on them to ultimately follow their skills first. Their skills will lead them down a path of less resistance to a career they can thrive in easier. Then they can look into a way to link that skill with a passion so that they can enjoy their LONG life of work a bit more.

I have always been envious of those who find the path that pays them to do their passion. Sure, even those people have days that they hate. Nurses who love little babies getting to leave the nursery to go home for the first time, also loose babies no matter how hard they try. Nature photographers spend weeks in horrible conditions and never get the shot and also go home with milaria to boot. Fashion designers loose dresses or have to deal with bridezillas (or motherzillas). It happens across the board, but most of their days are more passion than work.

Then there are dweebs like me that not only have been blessed with a husband who does work his tail off to support our family so that I have the option to follow my heart a bit, but I choose a passion that has a world renowned reputation for never ever being profitable. Crops die. Cows break everything. Horses break themselves and you can't even, in good conscience, eat them when they do like you can cows. One late season freeze kills all the buds on your fruit trees so you are just out of luck for the year.

But me, being the Queen of dweebs, decided that in order to keep everything interesting and keep myself as mentally and physically unstable as possible, I also chose to have a passion for all the things I am allergic to. All of them!
Horses? ✔️ ... but my sanity
Cows? ✔️ ... but they taste so good
Dogs? ✔️ ... three in the house
Cats? ✔️ ... at least they eat another thing I am allergic to.
Goats? ✔️ ... why not?!
Chickens? Somehow no...
All but three native species of grass and tree? ✔️ Yepperdo!!!

Guess what the worst is... hay... it is grass, pollen, dust, everything and I sneeze about eighty times a day especially in winter because all of my allergens required more allergens to survive. Eyes itchy and red. Brain swollen with liquid bo**er pressure. Can't breathe. My ears itch... why is that a thing!?!?! ....

Yes... this is where I willingly live.... I think "dweeb" might not describe my IQ level accurately enough.

01/01/2025

So... bucks... the manliest of beast... all the skull crushing testosterone pumping through their veins.... well... I mean that statement isn't wrong, but you would never know it if you heard one. Every buck I have ever owned has the whiniest, high pitched, castrato type voice. It cracks me up.

Feeding time is never a quite time. I have gotten pretty good at being able to identify most of the animals correct just by their sounds. The "baby ladies", nubians, I will admit I can't tell them apart by sound only, but I can at least identify that they are the nubians. Calypso sounds like she is baaing with her lips sealed shut. C.C. sounds like she is about to run out of breath. Rose just flat out screams.

Our newest herd member is a buck. His sound is unique but somehow familiar. It took me a while to figure it out, but I think I pinned down.

I 100% do not recommend this gentleman as a comedian because he is quiet crass, but I remember hearing his laugh at some point when a video of his found its way onto my facebook videos. It also is quiet unique. His name is Jimmy Carr and here is a link to a video of only his laugh and none of his jokes.

https://youtu.be/t64-8IECAek?si=Yp9iA_HpDy9VKBwU

My video is at feeding time this evening. Quiet noisy. Crook is quiet vocal the whole time I am preparing feed, but he usually shuts up really fast when he actually sees me so getting a recording close enough to actually hear him is tough. I have been trying for days and this is the best I have gotten. He isn't quiet hitting the high notes in it, but I figure you can add a little imagination to it and understand what I am talking about.

30/12/2024

How has this OBVIOUSLY male chicken not crowed yet? Ihave never known arooster to crow less than a few hundred times in any given 24 hour period!

26/12/2024

The farm life never stops. It may be a holiday and the weather might be amazing. You might be enjoying the amazing day with family... but the farm will go on.

Miss Frizz was our first kidding on the farm and also the only one we had to call a vet for. Thankfully, even though it was a trial for the vet too, Miss Frizz welcomed our first two kids and our whole family was there for it. One boy named one kid "Chip" and the other boy named the second "Spot". Since then, she welcomed many more babies onto the farm. She was an amazing mom. She was super friendly. She was unique with her long wavy hair and bossy attitude.

But she was old. We knew it. We had retired her so she could focus on herself, but over the last few weeks, we had discussed amongst ourselves, that we would be surprised if she made it through winter. Sometimes it sucks to be right. She had free choice hay and was eating well, but slowing in her movements and just staying a touch skinny.

Today, Miss Frizz laid down for a nap, but never woke back up. I found her at feeding time in her favorite spot in the barn. While she will be horribly missed, we are comforted that she lived out an amazing and long life here on the farm. She will watch over the herd from our hilltop. Rest in peace, Miss Frizz. Thank you for everything.

18/12/2024

Made a new batch of goat milk soap. Added some shea butter this time. Oils include "stress" oils like vanilla, lavender, cedarwood, etc. Mild but nice scent.

13/12/2024

The calves only have so much longer that they can hang out with the bucks before they get turned out in the big pasture. Since Salisbury is mostly blind, I thought it would be a good idea to strap a bell on Tater so Salisbury can keep track of his location easier and hopefully not panic and run through all the fences. Just picture the reaction, if you will, of the new bell scaring the calf a bit so he runs back to his herd of FAINTING goats for comfort.... pandemonium! You're welcome.

07/12/2024

The eldest offspring has been working fairly diligently on earning his horsemanship merit badge in TrailLife. The only thing his was missing was a little more trail riding time. Well, sadly, trail riding has been a solo sport since Astro passed, so it is difficult for him to get trail hours without paying for a nose to tail tourist trail ride. Loaning my horse to a stranger to ride would pretty much never happen, so I didn't expect that ask to actually be answered favorably, but I still hoped.

Well, I am not about to hold my boy back when he is motivated to achieve. So, today we loaded Faith up and drove to the flattest chunk of public riding land I could think of, Bakers Creek in Greenback. We got G up in the saddle and I walked beside him trying my best to keep up with the cool weather powered mare. She pushed G a fair amount, but they got along well and finished his requirements today.

My legs probably won't work right tomorrow, and I never really expect him to ask me to go riding again, but it was still nice and I would do it again in a heartbeat if he ever did ask.
.... I didn't adjust his stirrup length from my settings..... I will be the third tallest in our family very very soon.

29/11/2024

Faith is my girl, but she is not much of a lover. She had done or at least attempted everything I have ever asked, but if you don't have food for her and she is loose in the pasture, she normally just walks away. Every so often she does wanna hang out, but not often. Maybe she is missing having a herdmate since Astro passed. Maybe she just wanted to see how annoying she could be before I rage quit working on the waterline. I don't know, but if my girl wants love, I am gonna take a break or twenty to give her some attention and keep our bond strong so she continues to not kill me and my family whenever we are near.

She was really itchy today on her throat so I scratched. She rewarded me with some pretty funny faces. Here is a little of what I had to work with.

23/11/2024

When one is sick, but animals still need food.... activate PJ feeding time!.. with Joey who has a death wish because he walks insanely slow in front of me every... single.. day..

16/11/2024

So.... tired..... and sadly, not done, but pretty close. So much water line planted today from our single hydrant up at the very front of the property out to beyond our chunk of clay that might develop into an actual arena when it grows up. We dropped a new hydrant at the barn, and a second beyond the arena. We still have to actually hook up the water line, and I will have to build something to protect them from rubbing critters, but for now I feel good for how it is. Even if we were able to finish it tomorrow, I am pretty sure we would not be able to physically. We even got the Granny out there working today!

09/11/2024

Five of the ladies welcomed Crook to the herd today. This is Black Walnut Farms Mississippi. I decided Mississippi was too many syllables for a farm name, so we will be calling him Crook. (Get it?... crooked letter crooked letter!)

He is show correct and carries some super nice genetics. I can't wait to see what he will add to our farm.